What would be the best(read easiest to learn/most commonly used with/rather effective) type of martial or fist or foot type attacking arts would work smoothest with someone who fights with a single umm...i think its called a kodachi or kotachi(sword/knife that is half the length of a traditional katana).

In both the Korean and Chinese arts the use of the feet facilitate the weapon being employed. Sometimes these movements might be taken, even executed as part of the qweapons work. I don't know that it is accurate to think in terms of "combining" the two. What I mean is that if you start from the standpoint of putting together weapons work "with" MT hand work the result will always be just that rather than a seemless integration of the two. Its one of those reality-follows-intention things, yes?

Alright, "kodachi" simply means short-sword, the wakazashi (later sword, often paired with the katana) is essentially the same thing, and you might have an easier time finding a school that teaches it instead. Either way, you will have difficulty because, frankly, it isn't taught very much, and if you can't find an Araki Ryu school within reasonable distance (as Charles suggested), you might be out of luck.

If you want a deeply integrated hand/blade art and don't care about what blade you use, I would suggest that you learn Kung-Fu. You have the empty hand half of the art, and after you have reached a certain rank (specified by your school), you may be taught weaponry.

Your other choice would be to find a unified jujitsu-kenjitsu school for hand and blade.

As Glad said, it is far better to learn a unified style from a single school rather than learn two styles and tack-weld them together.

Only in the most extraordinary circumstance could someone kick in a swordfight and expect to leave the fight a biped.

The problem also becomes what your oppt is armed with.If your close enough to use your fist or foot, you main concern would be you oppt NOT being able to use his weapon--and that means your grappling for control of it.And if your close enough to be fighting for control of the weapon you close enought that kicks might be a problem.

Think we can reasonably assume that whomever your fighting is not going to just stand there.

Some ryu teach switching to a shorter weapon themselves, some individuals would do so from experience.

It also begs the question of what you would do if THEY attacked YOU in a similar way.

Most classcial ryu had training in the use of the shorter weapons vs longer.Like any technique they depend on the relative skill of the user for effect.

Edited by cxt (08/25/0510:58 AM)

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